Session 1: Theories and Concepts of Cyberspace and Cyberculture

4th Global Conference

Friday 13th March – Sunday 15th March 2009

Salzburg, Austria

Redefining the Body in Cyberculture: Art’s Contribution to a New Understanding of Embodiment
Umut Burcu Tasa
Faculty of Art and Design, Yildiz Technical University,  Istanbul, Turkey

The advance of digital technologies and evolution of cy-berculture have rejuvenated Modernity’s Cartesian dream of the pure mind achieving an unconditional freedom by leaving the body behind. The body, now more than ever, is perceived as another object in the external materiality where, as the lineage of Western thought so obstinately insists, the Truth is to be found. Eastern traditions like Sufi mysticism, on the other hand, offer a stark alternative: the physical reality is dismissed as illusion, the search for the Truth is essentially internal, and the self is not a segregated and detached entity but is an ever-interconnected part of the whole. We argue that leverag-ing both on the ancient wisdom of the East and the immense success of sci-ence and technology of the West, cyberculture can foster a new human condi-tion of re-embodiment, interconnectivity, and re-unity. We maintain that contemporary arts, particularly in performative and collaborative forms, have much to contribute to this endeavor, and emerging technologies like biome-chatronics and neuroprosthetics, which are acclaimed by some for their as-sumed contribution to the ideal of disembodiment, might be exploited by artists to promote a new understanding of embodiment and humanity’s inter-connectedness with the rest of the existence.

Download Draft Conference Paper (pdf)

The author William Gibson defined cyberspace in his sci-fi novel Neuromancer (1984) as “A consensual hallucination experienced daily by billions of legitimate operators, in every nation, by children being taught mathematical concepts… A graphic representation of data abstracted from banks of every computer in the human system. Unthinkable complexity. Lines of light ranged in the nonspace of the mind, clusters and constellations of data. Like city lights, receding.” (p. 69) It is the global network, which connects millions of computers and many countries. People are linked into this virtual world to exchange the data, news and opinions and for this they are using their bodies and minds together.

In this virtual world, human bodies and gender differences have a significant place, because our body images are always an important issue which is subject to cultural, social, economic and political struggles of definitions. Philosophers from different centuries, such as Aristotle, Kant, Freud, Schophenhauer, Foucault and others deal with the body images, human sexuality and gender differences. Some of them suggest that males and females have differences in that men are more powerful than women because they are close to culture and knowledge and in contrast women are close to nature.  In other words, women are more sensible than men (Sherry B. Ortner).  Yet, the academy current academic world continues to be dominated by the ideology of gender differences or the superiority of men. However, if we consider this technological-dominated twenty first century, human bodies are a kind of bridge between the outside and the inside of computers.

On the one hand, cyberspace is a private place for individuals to play with their own body images, create their own fantasies or imaginative world according to their desires or ideas. Through this, they demolish the binary opposition. On the other hand, by using cyberspace, and the human bodies, the global capitalism finds a way to spread its power over the world. Thus, as stated in one of the Feminist Dialogues Form “With the transition from industrial capitalism to a globalised network based capitalism, the paradigm of gender has changed” (Internet Web Source, 2007). For example, when we look at web pages we can say that our body images (male and female) and our gender differences are intermingled/blured with each other.

Thus, this conference paper will analyse some pornographic pages and chat rooms, to show how our bodies are subject to the ideological state apparatus (Louise Althusser) and also the paper will attempt to answer a question, which is “How does the Cyberspace change or effect the discourse or idea of body images?”. The initial findings of the analysis will indicate that body images are a kind of tool for the global capitalist system or power groups to control people and social order.

Consequently, it is possible to suggest that “certain institutional and cultural practices have produced individuals”.  (Jana Sawicki, p.22, 1991). Therefore, new politics (free market and economics) bring new body images with themselves. If cyberspace is a limitless and “new  universe” (Micheal Benedikt), our body images become just like toys for the capitalist or global system to either control our bodies or to give us a chance to feel free and redefine our gender differences.